A well-known carburetor rebuilder's website, among much rhetoric, declares that he doesn't surprise his customers with a lot of "add-ons" (his words) to the basic rebuild price. Of course, no professional shop owner will ever spring on his customer an unexpectedly high bill. He won't last long if he does. The website owner in question is playing on emotions here. He can't possibly mean no part that was not anticipated to need replacing will be charged for. That person would be a fool, and ever more so in today's vintage space. Carburetor rebuilding is mostly labor--there aren't many new parts involved. If a carburetor set needs a fairly expensive part that is not a consumable part of carburetor rebuilding, and this happens more often than you might think, that part has to be billed out as a separate line item--after consulting with the customer of course--or the rebuilder will eventually go out of business through giving away expensive parts.

The are no parts for 70s carburetors in Honda's warehouses. Any part that is not a normal consumable such as o-rings, screws, gaskets, diaphragms, or sealing washers has to come off another carburetor. There is no other source. Even back when used 50 year old carburetors were still plentiful on ebay, the result was the part had to be priced according to its rarity. Today, when used carburetors for some Honda models are just not available any more, rarity is a significant consideration. That part, coming off a used carburetor that the rebuilder somehow is able to source, is now much more valuable and precious, and doubly so when only one of its kind is found on a given carburetor set. Then, if that model motorcycle was itself rare even when new, well, you get the point. It's economics. Some carburetors are so old now that the market for still-existing carburetor parts is surging in intensity, literally doubling and tripling in value in the last three years alone. As could be expected. Their availability is shrinking rapidly. They soon will all be gone. And in the case of Honda carbs more than 50 years old especially, they are all gone, from even the last outposts of vintage factory Honda parts sources such as CMSNL, David Silver and NOS Parts Now. The result is there are many individual parts on 40-50 year old carburetors that demand $80, $100, $200, even $300 price tags. For one part, regardless of its size. Every day there are fewer and fewer opportunities to find them. And the first time a part is removed from a secreted donor carburetor (which rebuilders have been smart enough to hoard), that carburetor has immediately lost half its value. (It was mined for the part in the first place because there are none available--where will it get the part again to complete it?) It can never be sold as a complete carburetor set.

You don't have to have a degree in economics to understand this. The rebuilder who uses the "no add-ons" rhetoric is playing games with reality and not being completely truthful.